So, this wooden and unconvincing actress Jamie Harris (an appropriately wooden and unconvincing performance from Jennifer Rubin) pays five grand to go to acting classes in the hope that she can be in this new film, The Playmaker, where they're looking for an unknown to star. There's this acting coach Ross Talbot (Colin Firth), who lives in a big shiny house. His methods are a bit unconventional but hey, you've gotta dig deep, don't you? As Jamie lets her casting agent dig deep into her dungarees (you see the eroticism?).
Now of course Jamie's now kind of regretting she spent five grand on these lessons. I mean, the guy chucks her mother's necklace down the sink, takes photos of her eating, dresses her up as Frank-n-Furter (who she conveniently resembles anyway), straps her hands and feet into a wheelchair and makes her try to drink red wine whilst in the chair. However on the plus side, he's Colin Firth, and he wears some lovely jumpers. He should wear more jumpers.
So potentially the film could have turned into a black comedy about bullshit methods of acting. That might have saved it, even slightly. But no, it seems to be playing off the supposed eroticism of a tyrannical director and a young actress. The trope has worked brilliantly in other films but the problem is that here it just comes across as so unerotic. Leaving aside the fact that Jennifer Rubin has quite a masculine appearance (a bit like Glenn Close really), she can't act erotically, either as the tempted or temptress.
There's a bit of murder and twists like you'd expect in a thriller but you can either see them a mile coming or you just don't care. The world of acting does not make for an erotic thriller, however erotic the filmmakers consider acting and directing to be. Non drama types will be bored out of their brains. Lovely as Firth is, he can't save the film. Perhaps he was blackmailed into doing the film because I can see no other reason why anyone would take on such a ridiculous part. The first forty minutes may have limited camp value but the campery is unfortunately abandoned for the rubbish plot.
In short, search the Internet for some fan video of the film (well, of Firth. I doubt that there are fans of this film) so you can satisfy yourself on that count. Do not subject yourself to this film but feel free to subject others as some form of torture, perhaps to destroy the hopes and dreams of young actors.